I read your editorial about the danger the European Court of Justice ruling poses to research ("Protecting stem cell research", April 28).
In this Holyrood election, the Greens’ policies pose a similar danger to medical research. Long-standing green party policy is to end medical research using animals.
In their manifesto, they have changed the focus of the policy, and are seeking a moratorium on genetic engineering of all animals. Such a policy may win support as people fear genetically modified animals entering the food chain, but the vast majority of transgenic animals are used in medical and biological research.
Examples of transgenic animals used in research include mice which have received human genes to allow the study of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s. Fluorescent proteins from jellyfish are put into organisms such as mice and fruit-flies to allow cells to be studied, giving an insight into processes such as how the brain develops and functions. Genetic engineering is a fundamental tool for biological research. The Green Party’s policy would make most medical research all but impossible.
I see the Greens as a welcome addition to Holyrood, but with wider acceptance comes the need for greater scrutiny of their policies.
Michael T Craig,
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article